Author: The Editor

We have held a commission meeting during the EPSC 2018 in Berlin, Germany. The topics covered were the followings:

Search for publication tools to make ICA CPC publications more visible and more referenced (reviews, blogs, link to publication platforms like sciencedirect.com, Wikipedia presence, contact potential educators directly (via mailing list) to call attention to available publications related to planetary cartography and to encourage them to use it).

Chair change: current chair proposes A. Nass (DLR). National ICA member (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kartographie) will be contact to propose A. Nass as next commission chair at General Assembly in Tokyo. “The General Assembly shall, at the same time, approve terms of reference for that Commission.”

Standardization of map making and archiving in Europe: discussion on a ’standard’ map production process (on European level) to ensure compatibility in creation and archiving

Archive for planetary mapping results is needed. For this purpose a method has to be compiled that enables an efficient and sustainable search for cartographic products (analogue and digital). Archive should include and base on already existing map database.

Reviewing the quality of planetary maps (outside USGS mapping program) is a problem: we could form a group of volunteer reviewers who would help finalizing planetary maps

Children’s map series: continue and focus more on age group peculiarities: focus groups / tests with maps, including “reverse side” photomap, and variants, asking their interpretation

The Goddesses of Venus

Maps of Mercury

by atlas-v7x (DeviantArt) (New Zealand)

This series of Mercury maps show Mercury as no one has seen it before. These maps use MESSENGER topographic and color albedo data alone and combined. Nomenclature is dual, blue names are albedo features, white ones are topographic.

The Planet Venus / Venus – Map of Craters

by atlas-v7x (DeviantArt) (New Zealand)

Generic map of Venus, based on old Magellan radar altimeter data, with a fresh, terrestrial look. The Venus crater map looks as if it was taken from a School Atlas. Very Earth-like colors of very alien world with a random distribution of impact craters symbolized with little suns, otherwise to small to show up at this scale.

2017 brought a boom in planetary online WMS services. We show you which new service can do what.

The new Google map

Google worked closely with NASA the next corner in Silicon Valley to prepare the highest, 5m/px resolution global photomosaic of Mars in 2012 that even researchers used for browsing Mars, only available through Google Earth, but not in the web-based map. This year Google added a wealth of new layers, although nothing is published about the image sources or cartographic control. Perhaps at LPSC2018. The service “as is” but still provides the fastest planetary image browsing opportunity for the armchair scientist. Maps include clickable nomenclature. The uniqueness of Google maps is that they are original photomosaics you can’t find elsewhere.

Some of the additions include

a beautiful high resolution multiscale color map of Mercury, which shows albedo at low resolution and low-sun relief view when you zoom in, both MESSENGER data

a global radar view of Venus at full Magellan resolution

a so-so albedo view of the Moon

Mars is now a not very seamless but quite high resolution HRSC color mosaic with some gaps

Ceres is added but not Vesta

Color and multiscale mosaic for Ganymede and Callisto

Titan is a nicely rendered seamless infrared+radar view at high resolution

Pluto and Charon is also the highest resolution global mosaic in color

ESRI’s Solar System Atlas

The company behind ArcGIS, the most commonly used mapping software in planetary cartography, has published its online atlas from the layers also available for direct import into an ArcGIS project. Unlike for Google, credit is given for all image sources, but in this case mosaicking was not done by ESRI, but all maps were taken from USGS/NASA. This service is basically a tile service to quickly display existing data, including geologic maps.

Planetary Surface Portal / PSUP

This is a service from French university observatories (Paris Sud and Lyon), who made their OMEGA data available through this service. OMEGA (Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activit) is a hyperspectral imaging spectrometer developed in France, originally for a failed Russian mission, onboard the European Mars Express spacecraft. Mineralogical and albedo data can be viewed, and downloaded from the WMS along with some feature database layers.

Planetary Cesium Viewer

The Cesium technology based viewer from the Paris Sud University in France shows global mosaics for basically all major moons and planets in the Solar System, including the gas giants. The maps can be viewed as globes or 2D flat maps. The code is open, and available on Github.

Open Planetary Map Mars Basemap v0.1

The OpenPlanetaryMap (OPM) project aims to develop a vector based Mars map that users can modify and personalize. This is a community-based project where planetary scientists can share their cartographic ideas. The map uses CARTO Builder and there are detailed instructions on how you can build your own map within this system. This is the first attempt to create a vector-based Mars basemap, which would bring fresh air into a raster-filled planetary mapping universe.

Moon Trek

The official NASA outreach/research map combo for the Moon, an online platform for both enthusiasts and researchers. Numerous datasets, mapping and analysis tools are offered. Developed at NASA Ames and JPL in California.

The meeting had 12+1 participants. The sessions included 7 planetary talks (plus two in the pre-conference workshop) and 4 posters.
We discussed the commission projects, including the children’s maps, EPO apps and projects, nomenclature issues and databases.
It was stated that the basic goal of the commission is not to resolve science questions but to facilitate visibility of planetary datasets for the terrestrial cartographers and produce EPO materials for students.
M. Pitura volunteered to further develop the commission’s WordPress website.
We agreed that the commission website will feature a “toolbox” for planetary EPO that will include the tools we presented during the meeting, including the desciption of enhanced ePub, game/city engine etc.
A. Nass talked about the need for a publication that helps mappers in planetary feature identification in images.
A. Jasper talked about the problems of nested placenames, and designation of subsurface features identified on radar data.
For the childrens maps, we talked about the need of better targeting age groups and defining the exact ways the map wants to engage readers and how the map could relate to the reader’s experience.
We agreed that a planetary map reading test will be made to find the best ways to depict an extraterrestrial surface that is understood by the readers. Placenames are important on a planetary map because they may be the only parts of the map that is relatable, i.e. has some familiarity to the map reader.
In future publications we will experiment with maps designed in familiar scales, i.e. city map, country map, continent map scales – increasing relatability.
We have discussed the possibilities of coordinated activities between our commission and the IAU Commission on Cartographic Coordinates & Rotational Elements.
We have discusses the possibility of new commission projects:
– Open Planetary, an open source user interface to interact with Mars map, the “Martian open street map”
– Automated extraction of areas of interest of research papers
– enhanced ePub applications
– real life location based applications designed for Mars (etc) maps for smartphones
– creative identification of any point on a planet’s surface, that can be used by virtual explorers to identify their current location, and address or “three words”
– development of detailed astronomy club educational activities based on planetary cartographic products or the production of planetary maps
– new approaches to map styles, e.g. mapbox
– promote the inclusion of maps in astronomy apps like “Planets”
– Promote the inclusion of planetary maps in Atlases, with a good example the Swiss World Atlas
– verbal comparative description of an area to known units on earth (this place on Mars is 10 Spains)
– triggered by a talk by J. Reyes, we could develop a Mars Atlas based on the design of the School atlases of M. Kogutowicz.

There is no decision on next year’s meeting but it could be in Central Europe.
We have agreed that in Tokyo, a new chair has to be appointed.

ICC2017 — July 1, Washington, D.C.
DIFFERENT FIELDS – ONE CARTOGRAPHY
Joint workshop to share the results of latest and most representative research.
Deadline for the submission of full papers: March 30.http://lazarus.elte.hu/~jesus/jointworkshop2017/

Archie’s Press publishes minimalist “mental” maps that are built from circles. “The circle, our Universe’s softest shape, clearly conveys size and connections.” – Archie says. He created a “Map from the Mind” for dozens of cities, simplifying structures and districts in the simplest terms. The same way Harry Beck’s London Tube Map simplified the representation of the real world to lines and curves, Archie Archambault expands this idea to cities, states, – and celestial bodies. He finds the best known features and names and shows them in a way easy to keep in your mind. This is cartography at its best.

His outer space series, also made along the same geometric principles, includes the maps of Jupiter, Mars, the Moon, Saturn, the Sun, The Solar System and the Galaxy. There is no unnecessry element on the maps: even annotations serve a cartographic purpose.

The perfect gift for your young scientist?
The new children’s map of PLUTO and CHARON.
The map will premiere on December 13 at the AGU meeting in San Francisco and will be available for download from the next day.
In the USA, we ship it to your home before the holidays.
Downloads of the full resolution map will be free before the holidays.
Other maps in the series: https://childrensmaps.wordpress.com/